Tag: Dallas Cowboys vs Arizona Cardinals

Cowboys CB DaRon Bland proving lightning can strike twice

The second-year pro proves he’s more than ready to fill the shoes for the All-Pro he’s replacing. | From @TimLettiero

Cowboys fans got to sit back and enjoy the good version of Dallas this week as they strolled to a win against the New England Patriots. From start to finish, it was an assertive victory with very few negatives in the 38-3 victory. The offense moved the football downfield at will against one of the league’s better, defenses. Once again though, it was the Cowboy’s defense, turning in another dominant display.

Dallas allowed a field goal on their first drive and seemed to take it personally. Midway through the second quarter, a defensive score extended the lead to 18-3 and soonafter the star of the show went to work. As New England attempted to make something happen before the half, QB Mac Jones looked left and threw a too-late hitch in the direction of second-year star DaRon Bland.

The Cowboys made sure to get Bland, who spent 2022 playing slot duties, a ton of work on the outside during the offseason. It’s paying immediate dividends in 2023.

Now up 28-3 going into the half, Dallas was in the driver’s seat to put the game to bed. Once more, “anything but” Bland did what needed to be done.

With All-Pro Trevon Diggs out for the season with a torn ACL, Dallas was in desperate need of someone to step up in the secondary. Bland has done more than his part since entering the league and is now entering superstar territory and the aforementioned Diggs has something to say about that.

It took Diggs half a season in his rookie year to acclimate himself to the league. Once he did, he went on a historic run with 14 interceptions across 21 games. Bland seems to be on a similar trajectory. Diggs started from Day 1 but didn’t have an interception until his eighth contest.

Bland had an interception as a part-time player, with just 63 snaps across his first seven games. He’s added seven interceptions in the 14 contests since, for a total of eight in his young career. The sky seems to be the limit for the youngseter and for the Cowboys, who continue to corner the market at the position.

By The Numbers: Red zones woes, play-calling insights from Cowboys’ Week 3 debacle

The Cowboys had a lot of issues come to light against the Cardinals in Week 3, here’s a look inside the numbers. | From @ReidDHanson

Number don’t always tell the story, but they can certainly explain a situation. The Dallas Cowboys’ Week 3 numbers take on the brutal role of breaking down the debacle in Arizona.

Losing 28-16, the Cowboys dropped to 2-1, losing their grip on the top spot in NFL power rankings and calling into question nearly every facet of the team. From scheme, to strategy, to player performance, the team is feeling the heat from every angle. With any luck, diving into the numbers will not only show the problems but also offer the solutions.

3 major takeaways from Cowboys’ loss in Week 3

The three major takeaways in the Cowboys’ Week 3 loss to Arizona are all negative but they’re also all correctable. | From @ReidDHanson

The mood in Dallas couldn’t have changed more in Week 3. After dominating the NFL over the first two weeks of the 2023 season, the Cowboys were humbled and humiliated, falling 28-16 to the previously winless Cardinals.

The loss highlighted deficiencies of both players and coaches. They struggled in all three phases of the game with not a single unit beyond reproach in the aftermath.

Opening as 12-point favorites, the Cowboys loss marked one of the biggest upsets of the season and humbled a Dallas franchise that may have been drinking too much of their own Kool-Aid.

It’s games like this that can provide potentially season-saving takeaways. Weaknesses were exposed, but in just the third game of the season, corrections can still be made.

4 Downs: Explosive plays blow up in Cowboys’ faces in Week 3 loss

From @ToddBrock24f7: The Cowboys uncharacteristically gave up some big plays that cost them Sunday. They did plenty of shooting themselves in the foot, too.

If you’re looking for the plays that cost Dallas their Week 3 game at Arizona, you’ll have your pick from a very long list as the previously unbeaten and top-ranked Cowboys looked lost for most of Sunday’s contest. Playing behind a patchworked offensive line, Dak Prescott led a largely ineffective passing game, and Micah Parsons helmed a defensive unit that played flat and uninterested in their first game without Trevon Diggs.

A staggering 13 penalties on the day gifted the Cardinals over 100 yards of field position. But the Redbirds were moving the ball quite well on their own- even without the help of the men in black and white- to the tune of 200-plus rushing yards and a total of seven explosive plays of 20 yards or more.

In a game that saw the Cardinals come in as double-digit home underdogs, it was the Cowboys who had to play catch-up, and they did right up until the game’s final minutes. What looked to be the easiest game of the first half of the Cowboys’ schedule turned out to be their first loss of 2023, an embarrassing 28-16 stumble that could very well come back to haunt them come December and January.

And when they look back at their latest debacle in the desert, these four plays will be among those that sting the most.

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Cowboys WR Michael Gallup returns to form in a disappointing loss

From @timlettiero: Michael Gallup, our Player of the Game, turns back time and proves his worth against the Arizona Cardinals on a rough day in the desert.

The Cowboys traveled to Glendale in their Week 3 bout with the 0-2 Arizona Cardinals but seemingly left their abilities in Dallas. Struggling to get anything going on either side of the ball, the Josh Dobbs-led Cardinals had their way for four quarters. They dominated Dallas on the ground offensively and stifled multiple red zone trips defensively, giving Dallas no room to breathe.

Simply put, there is little positive to take away from this game. Thankfully, everyone came out of it healthy, but no one stepped up when they desperately needed someone to. What we did see, however, was multiple names answer questions about their future, wide receiver Michael Gallup specifically.

Gallup has gotten next to no shine this season after a rough 2022 campaign but made his presence known Sunday.

Early on, Gallup took a rotine catch and quickly turned away from his man for a nice 19-yard, first-down gain on second and long.

Fast-forward to the middle of the third, and vintage Michael Gallup returns for the first time in a long time for a beautiful pitch and catch.

 

To cap his solid day, he moved the chains with a clutch grab on a nasty slant to keep the offense moving in the fourth.

 

Gallup didn’t light up the stat sheet with his performance, but for a player that has struggled to return to the form everyone knows he can reach, this was a fantastic day at the office for him.

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Twitter reacts to Cowboys’ 28-16 desert disaster vs Cardinals

From @ToddBrock24f7: Social media had a field day with the Cowboys’ pathetic performance against the winless Cardinals.

Just when the national football media had settled in to the notion that the Cowboys were deserving of a top spot in power rankings and a place in the conversation about historically elite defenses… another trip to the Arizona desert once again provides a plot twist, this time upending the team’s sky-high September story.

Next to nothing went right for Dallas in Week 3, as the previously winless Cardinals reinforced the somber truth behind the old any-given-Sunday adage and brought the Cowboys and their fanbase crashing back down to earth over the course of an embarrassing 28-16 defeat. As usual, social media had plenty to say about all the action as it unfolded.

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Studs & Duds: Gallup returns in Arizona loss, but so do Cowboys’ red-zone woes

From @ToddBrock24f7: The forgotten WR tied for the team lead in catches in Week 3, but two offensive linemen had a day they would prefer to now forget.

After back-to-back weeks in which it felt like nitpicking to select any duds from the Cowboys lineup, Week 3 proved difficult for identifying very many studs. The team was thoroughly disappointing in nearly every phase of the game in their 28-16 loss to the previously winless Cardinals, with plenty of blame to go around in an uninspired, lackluster, sloppy, penalty-filled performance.

There were bright spots, even if they were hard to see sometimes. One receiver who had practically gone M.I.A. made a nice comeback to the top of the team’s targets chart, and the run game turned in good numbers, too, albeit behind a cobbled-together offensive line.

That front five left a lot to be desired. While quarterback Dak Prescott was sacked just twice, he rarely had a clean pocket to work from. And when Cowboys linemen weren’t being overpowered, it seemed, they were getting flagged for a variety of infractions. That proved difficult for Dallas to overcome; their confounding and ineffective play inside the Arizona red zone certainly didn’t help.

Here’s your studs and duds from Week 3’s fall back to earth.

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Penalties, poor red zone play doom Cowboys in 28-16 loss to Cardinals

From @ToddBrock24f7: Penalties and red-zone ineffectiveness are once again the story in Dallas after an uninspired loss to the previously winless Cardinals.

Cowboys Nation would like to respectfully request that all future trips to Glendale to face the Cardinals be canceled. The team’s latest visit to State Farm Stadium, as has been the case so many times before, was a thoroughly frustrating affair, this one ending in a disappointing 28-16 loss.

The first half of Sunday’s Week 3 game in Arizona couldn’t have gone much worse. The scene was set 90 minutes before kickoff when the club declared Zack Martin and Tyler Biadasz inactive with injuries. Then a third OL starter- Tyron Smith- was standing on the sideline when the offense took the field for the first time. The offense was largely uninspired, the defense gave up multiple big plays on the ground, and the winless Cardinals shocked Dallas by scoring on their first five possessions. Penalties proved to be a major bugaboo, too, as the Cowboys racked up a whopping 11 penalties… all before intermission.

The tide seemingly started to turn in the third quarter, highlighted by a brilliant Dak Prescott scramble that extended a deep Dallas drive. While it ended in a short field goal rather than a touchdown, momentum continued to shift the Cowboys’ way after an electrifying punt return by KaVontae Turpin. That big play was called back by yet another Dallas penalty, though, and a chance to close the scoring gap was denied by a 4th-and-goal play that went nowhere. Micah Parsons finally closed out the third quarter with a ferocious sack of Cardinals QB Joshua Dobbs (and his new signature celebration, which the linebacker has named “The Doomsday Death Crawl”), and Cowboys fans had hope it was a sign of the fourth-quarter rally to come.

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But more poor play calls in the red zone kept the Cowboys in neutral and settling for field goals, while the Cards put the pedal to the metal. Dobbs connected with Michael Wilson for a 69-yard explosive in which the Dallas secondary was completely lost, and Arizona punched the ball into the end zone shortly thereafter. Down by two scores with seven minutes to play, Prescott drove the offense into the red zone, but he then threw his first interception of the season to effectively shut the door on any sort of comeback effort.

The Cowboys ended with a staggering 13 penalties and gave up 222 rushing yards. That- and Prescott’s crunch-time pick at the goal line- will be the talk all week in Big D.

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WATCH: Rico Dowdle’s first NFL TD narrows gap vs Cardinals

From @ToddBrock24f7: Penalties have made a comeback for the Cowboys, but Dowdle and the Dallas offense are trying to get back on track.

A patchworked Cowboys offense may be starting to come to life after a slow and penalty-filled start.

After falling behind for the first time in the 2023 season, the Cowboys have found the end zone on a Dak Prescott-to-Rico Dowdle screen-pass hookup from 15 yards out.

A Brandon Aubrey PAT made the score 15-10 with just over five minutes to play before intermission.

The score was the first of Dowdle’s NFL career.

Overall, the Cowboys are having some trouble in Glendale. The defense has given up several big plays and missed multiple tackles on a slippery field at State Farm Stadium. Offensively, Dallas is playing behind three backup offensive linemen, one making his season debut, and a fifth- Terence Steele- still getting back into midseason form after a long injury rehab over the offseason.

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Penalties have also reared their ugly head for the Cowboys. After being flagged just 11 times over the first two games, Dallas was called on 10 infractions in the first half today and are down 21-10 at the intermission.

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WATCH: Brandon Aubrey’s 49-yard kick puts Cowboys on board in dicey 1st quarter

From @ToddBrock24f7: The Cowboys are off to a rough start, behind on the scoreboard for the first time this season.

Things are off to a rough start in Glendale.

With Zack Martin and Tyler Biadasz already made inactive prior to kickoff, the Cowboys offensive line was dealt an additional blow when it was announced that Tyron Smith would not start the Week 3 contest, despite being dressed.

Their absences have been obvious, with the Cowboys unable to get much going on offense. Defensively, it hasn’t been much better; the Cardinals led the day’s scoring to put Dallas behind for the first time this season.

On their next possession after an opening-drive field goal, Arizona scored a touchdown and kicked the point after to go up 10-0 for the briefest of moments. A Dallas penalty moved the ball closer for a Cardinals retry, and head coach Jonathan Gannon elected to take a point off the board and go for two.

The Cowboys defense held, making the deficit 9-0.

Dallas was able to salvage three points of their own before the quarter ended, coming off the leg of rookie kicker Brandon Aubrey. His 49-yard field goal made the score 9-3, and that’s where it remained when the opening 15 minutes were complete.

A fired-up Cardinals team, a piecemealed Cowboys offensive line, and a Dallas defense that has yet to find its footing- both figuratively and literally- are making this latest trip to the desert look like it could be yet another wild one, full of twists and turns.

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